Encore Post: As a liturgical church, the Lutheran Church organizes its worship life around a calendar of themes, readings from Scripture, worship services, practices, symbols and prayers known as the church year. It shares much of this organization with other liturgical churches and even some non-liturgical faith traditions.
The most general division in the Church Year is the semester. Tradition divides the church calendar into two parts. The first begins with the first Sunday of Advent and ends with the Day of Pentecost. It is known by several names. Most often it is called either the Festival Season or the Semester of our Lord. During this half-year, the church focuses on the life and earthly ministry of Jesus.
After the Day of Pentecost, the second half of the year, known as the Semester of the Church begins. It is also called Ordinary Time, the Season of Pentecost or the Season of Trinity. The focus is on how Christians should live life in this fallen world. Some of the pieces of the liturgy change at about week ten in the season of Pentecost and then again after the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. The list of readings, known as the lectionary, changes from a list geared to the place of the reading in the season (nth Sunday in Lent, etc.) to its position on the secular calendars. These sets of readings are called Proper 1, Proper 2, Proper 3, etc. this is to keep the readings on the same Sunday, more or less, each year.
What this means is that a bit of variety is always a part of our worship, even in its most traditional forms. As we receive God’s gifts, we hear most of the Scripture read to us. At the same time, we study and pray in unity with the church in every time and place.
Encore Post: The feast of Pentecost was one of the celebrations established by God at Mount Sinai. Also called the Feast of Weeks, it was a kind of Thanksgiving in which people brought a sacrifice for the harvest of grain. It was fifty days after Passover and known by the Greek word for fifty days — Pentecost. Since many Jews and Godfearers traveled to Jerusalem from great distances to be there for Passover, many stayed for this feast as well.
On Pentecost, the wind got the attention of the crowd. Wind and tongues of fire witnessed to the presence of the Holy Spirit. God kept his promise on that day when he gave himself — the third person of the Trinity — to the whole Church. No longer would the Holy Spirit come to just prophets, but to all believers, young and old, Jew and Gentile, of all nations and languages. They all spoke in the languages of the people gathered in Jerusalem, singing the praises of God. The church celebrates this day as a kind of birthday. It was that day the gospel began to spread to the ends of the earth.
Both the Hebrew and Greek words for Spirit mean “Wind.” The Holy Spirit hovered over the chaos before God created the Heavens and the Earth. When Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit settled into the Holy of Holies in the form of a cloud. When the Prophet Elijah fled to Mount Sinai, God sent a mighty wind, an earthquake, and a fire to get his attention. At the baptism of Jesus, the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove.
The pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost fulfilled prophecy in Old Testament (Joel 2:28-32), by John the Baptist (Matthew 3:11) and by Jesus (Acts 1:5). By baptizing His people with the Holy Spirit, Jesus gave them the power to witness to God’s love. He provided them with a counselor to lead and guide them. Just like the prophets of the Old Testament, every one of God’s children now can proclaim His praises to everyone.
Encore Post: As we discussed in an earlier post, non-Christian scholars, liberals and some conservative Christians, believe that the church created the celebration of Christmas to displace pagan celebrations. The reason for this conclusion is that Christians did not universally celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25th. Yet the Emperor Aurelian did declare that the day be celebrated as the Birthday of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Son). These scholars theorized that the Church decided to replace this pagan holiday with the celebration of Christ’s Birth to keep people out of the temples of this popular pagan god.
When Julius Caesar reformed the Roman calendar, December 25th fell on the winter solstice. The word solstice means “The Sun stops.” On this day, the northern hemisphere has the least amount of daylight. From this point on until the summer solstice, the Sun would seem to gain strength. So December 25th was celebrated as the beginning of its return.
Most pagan societies worship the sun as a god and Rome was no exception. Beginning with Nero Caesar, Roman emperors associated themselves with the Sun God Sol and its Greek equivalent, Ἕλιος (Helios). This god became a favorite of the Roman armies. As Christianity became more widely believed in Rome, pagan Emperors increased the persecution of the Church. Aurelian promoted the worship of Sol as a kind of pledge of allegiance and promoted December 25th in the same kind of way Americans celebrate July 4th. When Constantine the Great came to be Emperor, he ended the government sponsorship of the worship of Sol.
So, did the Church decide to put Christmas on December 25th to counter the worship of the Sun? Not exactly. There is no reference to the celebration of Sol Invictus in the works of the Early Church fathers related to the date of Christmas. It appears that the reverse is the case, that the Emperor instituted the pagan festival in order to counter the rise of Christianity and the first celebrations of Christmas on the date.
The early church did associate the metaphor of the Sun with Jesus, but not because of the Roman holiday. The Prophet Malachi had prophecies of the Messiah that he would be “The Sun of Righteousness” who would rise with healing in his rays. In the earliest Christmas sermons, this theme was often used. The church did use the occasion to its advantage, but not always successfully. Christians would retain ancient customs, but would pour new meaning into them. Over time, Jesus would become the reason for the season.
Rev. Robert E. Smith Concordia Theological Seminary Fort Wayne, Indiana
Encore Post: From Monday to Wednesday of Holy Week, Jesus taught in the temple. His opponents challenged him several times, he told parables against them and warned people about him. First, the priests asked by what authority he did the things he did. Jesus countered by asking them whether John the Baptist was from God. Because they would not answer, neither would he. (Matthew 21:23-27)
Jesus’ three parables were his last attempt to call his opponents to repentance. They were the Parable of the Two Sons, the Parable of the Wicked Vineyard Tenants and the Parable of the King’s Wedding Feast. The point of all three was that his opponents pretended to serve God, but really were disobedient. (Matthew 21:28-22:14)
His opponents responded with several test questions: should we pay taxes to Caesar? Who will be the husband of a woman in the resurrection who was married to seven brothers without having a child? What is the greatest commandment? His answers were so profound, they did not follow up. (Matthew 22:15-40)
He then posed a question to them: if the Christ is David’s son, why does David call the Christ Lord? They did not answer.
The majority of what Jesus taught that week, however, was about his second coming and eternity. In this way, he prepared his disciples for his approaching death. One on the evenings of this week in Bethany, Jesus’ friend Mary anointed him with expensive perfume for his coming burial.
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
When we think of Palm Sunday there is a lot going just with the reading from John that began our service. But then throw in the other lessons and the entire reading of our Lord’s Passion and it’s a whole different animal. But what we see when we hear the words of our Lord’s passion is the fulfillment of the word of hope that Zechariah that obscure post exilic prophet spoke of in our Old Testament lesson for the day.
The people who first heard Zechariah preach this had a very hard question before them. Would God do what He promised and give them a king from the line of David who would sit on the throne forever? They had no king; the line of David already then was in shambles and near obscurity. Had God gone back on his promise? Are you also questioning God about something? Does God really love me? Has God forgotten about me and my pains in this life? Am I going to receive relief in my time of languishing?
But rejoice! Yes, shout aloud! Rejoice for the Lord has not forgotten you but brings you this word of hope. Your king comes! He is righteous. And has salvation for you. A word of great hope. God has not forgotten you, but He is working in his time to bring about your salvation. And the son of David, Jesus Christ would come fulfilling the prophesy proclaimed.
But the king would not be like the kings anyone was used to. This king would not come in riding on a war horse but rather a donkey, a beast of burden. He is not wearing armor for war, nor is war what he is about. But rather its all about removing the weapons of war, the chariot, the war horse and bow. Peace and reconciliation is His Word to His people. He does not coerce submission and obedience by force, but rather He showers you with mercy and love. He comes with salvation. He comes to fix the broken relationship between His Father and us. He comes also to fix our broken relationships on earth. Christ’s Forgiveness and mercy rule the day. What a great promise of hope!
And this word of the Lord spoken by the prophet captivated the hearts of his hearers. Just like Jesus captivated those whom He healed and cared for during his earthly ministry. There was hope, and this hope held their listeners captive.
What about you? As we enter into Holy Week, we as Christians celebrate and revel in the Lord’s grace, mercy, and love for us. May the proclamation of hope in Christ Jesus be made your own! We hear again the passion accounts of our Lord. We recall the words of our Lord at the cross, “Forgive them Father”. We remember his crown of thorns. We recall his title: “King of the Jews“. We know why He does it all. He does it all out of love. He does it so that we would have forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. He has come to you and grants you salvation, having received salvation from Him in Holy Baptism. You have everlasting life for the sake of your Lord Christ Jesus who died in your place on that cross and rose again on the third day.
But what now? Are we not like the people of Zechariah’s day? Are we not waiting for the return of the King? Are we not all wondering why He hasn’t come already? When everything will be made right? When the relationships on this earth will be reconciled, when the spears will be beaten into plowshares? When His peace shall reign from the river to the ends of the earth. It has been a long time. But we, like the Israelites of Zechariah’s day, have been granted a word of peace and hope to trust in. Christ our Lord and King who has come now promises to be with us and give us his peace. He is with us always even to the end of the age. And we have his signs and tokens of love in the means of Grace: Baptism and His Supper. They are the ways by which His love, mercy, and grace shown at the cross are delivered and made yours. Your hope is anchored in the one who has come, and He has promised to come again to take us to where He is.
We know the end of the story. We know how this week of our Lord’s passion ends. We see the King of Glory, the King of Peace go to a cross for the sin of the world. Christ the King, battles against Satan, He sizes him up, and beats him at his own game. He rises from the grace on the third day, defeating death once and for all. He swallows up death forever so that you are brought out of the waterless pit and be given new life in Him.
You are living the new life promised to you by Christ now by your baptism. You are a child of the kingdom of peace. Do not forget that, hold on to the promise of your Lord who has bled out for you and gave up his life for you. Be at peace and hope in him. Look to the covenant which he spoke and now gives to you, “the new covenant in my blood,” He says. That is a token and pledge of the forgiveness won as well as the reconciliation between God and us in a vertical direction, and that same meal also promises and reconciles us to one another. Be forgiven by the Lord and forgive one another for the sins committed against each other.
Return to your stronghold. The stronghold is your Lord and Your God, who goes to his throne of the cross to win for you salvation over sin, death, and devil. Be held captive by His Word of Hope and Peace.
Rejoice and Hope in the one who has come, who brings righteousness and salvation to you, now and always, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
Encore Posts: Once every four years, the world pauses to watch the Olympics. Among the most exciting of the sports contested are the foot races, where the fastest men and women to ever walk the earth run nearly as fast as each other, the winner crossing the finish line a few thousandths of a second ahead of the others. The crowds That pack the stands cheer them on. The loudest are coaches urging them on.
The Book of Hebrews uses is image to describe the assembly of the church triumpant — all of God’s holy ones — his saints — who have died and now live in God’s presence forever. They form a “great cloud of witnesses” cheering us on. (Hebrews 12:1-2) Also our coach, Jesus, stands at the finish line. We focus on him as we run our race because he endured the cross before us and for us. When we worship, we enter eternity and join them, the “whole company of heaven”, in praising God.
All Saints’ Day is an ancient celebration — begun in the Eighth Century (700s AD) It was intended celebrate all the Saints that did not have a special day assigned for them. Lutherans have kept this day a sort of Christian Memorial Day. We remember the Christians in our lives who have died and now rest with Christ, especially those who entered eternal life in the last year. It is a joyful day, more so than the day of their funeral, where grief is more intense. Most parishes read their names during worship. Some use other ways to remember — distributing flowers, lighting votive candles or other practices special to them.
Yet our celebration is not about the saints — even our loved ones. It is about Jesus, their Savior, who by his death has destroyed death and by his resurrection opened the kingdom to all believers. He is the author and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of God. It is because he is risen that they — and we — will rise on the last day. So, we dry the tears in our eyes, for he is risen! He is risen indeed! Allelujah!
Encore Post: 1600 years ago, a respected, old monk lived in a cave in Bethlehem said to be the birthplace of Jesus. We know him as Saint Jerome, the father of translation, one of the greatest scholars of church history, standing only in the shadow of his contemporary, St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. We give thanks for him and all translators on September 30. In medieval times, the church assigned him to the role of patron saint of libraries. His symbol in Christian art is the lion, after the legend that he pulled a thorn out of the paw of a lion cub, who followed him the rest of his life. A large version of the classical painting of him in his study hangs opposite my desk in the Walther Building of the Wayne and Barbara Kroemer Library Complex.
Jerome is said to have written the latin pun: translatio traditio est. It means both: “Translation is Tradition” and “Translation is Treason.” It captures perfectly the two forces that pull at faithful translators. You can either perfectly rewrite the meaning of the text in the new language or reproduce each word with the one or two words in the new language that are closest to the original. If you do the first, the result is more a commentary — what the scholar believes from his or her theological viewpoint. If you do the second, people reading the translation have a very hard time understanding what it means.
Most translations lean towards one or the other, but try to do both. If they succeed — like St. Jerome’s Vulgate, Luther’s German Bible and the King James Version — generations will come to love the language of these version and at the same time hear God’s Word. It passes down the faith to the next generation. When they do not, it distorts God’s word at best and betrays it at worst. So, translation is both tradition and treason. For those of us who speak English, we are blessed with dozens of translations. Taken together, they open to us the treasures of Holy Scripture. For this reason, we thank God for Jerome — and all translators!
Encore Post: As you take a vacation trip and visit new churches along the way, you may notice that the Scripture passages read seem a lot like the ones being read at your church at home. You are probably right. Most Lutheran churches and other Christian traditions use a Lectionary — a list of readings agreed upon by a group of Christian Church bodies.
This is nothing new — the first lectionaries were used by synagogues before Jesus was born. The church continued that tradition, adding readings from the Gospels and a variety of letters and sermons written by the apostles and other early church fathers. Those recognized by the church as God’s Word eventually became a part of the lectionary proper and joined other Scriptures read regularly in worship.
The readings eventually settled down into a standard rotation. These became traditional lessons for the same Sunday in the Church Year. This pattern is used to this day — with some small adjustments — in the historic one year lectionary. Its advantage is that our ancestors heard these passages read — even Martin Luther and those before him.
Beginning in 1974, Protestant churches together developed a three-year lectionary, which reached its final form in 1983. Called the Revised Common Lectionary, it is used by most Christians in the United States. The three-year lectionary in Lutheran Service Book is based on this Lectionary. Its advantage is that more of the Scripture is read in worship and preached upon.
If you want to prepare for worship on Sunday during the week before, why not consult your congregation’s lectionary? The list of readings is available online at: the LCMS’ lectionary page?
The Day of Pentecost comes on June 9th, but we have already been working up to it with the last few weeks of the season of Easter. Jesus promises to send the Paraclete, that is the Holy Spirit (John 14:25-31, John 16::1-15).
Pentecost was originally was a harvest festival, the ingathering of the winter wheat. In the Old Testament, it is called the Feast of Weeks. The feast began fifty days after Passover. It was also a day to celebrate again Moses receiving the Law and God’s Covenant made at Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19-24, where there was wind and fire.
In Acts 2, Luke records the first Pentecost after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. Just like the events at Mount Sinai, there was a great, mighty rushing wind, God’s Word, and a harvest. Only this time the fire came in flaming tongues over the disciple’s heads. They declare God’s Word and each person in attendance heard the mighty acts of God proclaimed in their own language. Faith was created by hearing. The Holy Spirit made this possible, and also created the faith in each person that they might make this eternal truth their own: that Jesus died on the cross to take away “MY” sins.
This is something that the Christian ought to do, for remembering the Sabbath is commanded by our Lord. Yet it is truly for our own benefit to hear God’s Word for by hearing we are brought to repentance and faith in Christ for our salvation, just like those 3000 that first Pentecost Day.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
Encore Post: The Ascension is an important event in the life of Jesus and the Church. It is the final part of the work which redeemed us: the cross, where our sins were paid for, the resurrection where the power of the grave was broken and the ascension which restored all His honor, glory, authority and power. From the days of the early church, over 1500 years ago, until recent years, the church celebrated the Ascension on the fortieth day after Easter, or the Thursday ten days before Pentecost. In the 21st century, many churches celebrate Ascension on the Sunday before Pentecost.
When He ascended, Jesus left His Church a promise, a mission and a blessing. He promised to be with us always, until the end of time. He gave us our mission. We would join His mission to seek and save the lost by going to the whole world, being witnesses to His life, death and resurrection, to proclaim the good news of salvation, baptizing and teaching all He commanded us. As He ascended, He blessed them as Aaron and the High Priest did and as pastors do to this day, giving us His peace. He promised to be with us always, until the end of time itself.
Now the church waits patiently for him to return. On a day that no one knows, Jesus will return. On that day, he will raise our bodies from the grave, judge all the living and the dead, bring an end to sin, death and the power of the devil. God will live among us again, throw the greatest marriage feast of all time. He will dry the every tear from our eyes.
